Queen Anne and the Georges

History of 18th century England, first published in 1895. The book begins: "We open in this book upon times--belonging to the earlier quarter of the eighteenth century--when, upon the Continent of Europe, Peter the Great was stamping out sites for cities in the bogs by the Finland gulf--when that mad-cap Swedish King Charles XII. was cutting his bloody swathe through Poland--when Louis XIV., tired at last of wars, and more tired of Marlborough, was nearing the end of his magnificent career, and when King Mammon was making ready his huge bloat of the Mississippi Bubble for France and of the South Sea Company for England.”